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He’s taking out the trash when she appears in front of him out of nowhere, like a ghost, and pale as one, too.
“Jeez!” Luke snaps, the bag slipping out of his fingers and crashing to the pavement. Thankfully it doesn’t split, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t automatically pissed.
“Hey,” she says, and her voice scratches.
“What’s wrong?” he demands, anger melting away faster than it appeared at the brokenness in her expression and the unshed tears shining in her eyes.
Lorelai shifts from one foot to another, timid, but she meets his eyes. (She always meets his eyes, he thinks. He loves that about her.)
“Can we go somewhere?” she asks. “Can we just…can we get in the truck, and drive away, and stop in like five minutes and get a bunch of snacks, of course, but then keep driving, and we’ll go to all the dumb tourist spots within a hundred miles of this town, and at each one we’ll buy a postcard, but instead of sending the postcard we’ll take it to the next place we go and leave it there so that the next person who comes along wonders why there’s a postcard from the Grand Canyon in the postcard rack at the Washington Monument.” She’s rambling, tripping over her words, like she’s trying not to let herself think, like she’s hoping, against the odds, that he won’t think either.
“I don’t think either of those are within a hundred miles of here.”
“Luke.”
“Lorelai, you’re being crazy,” he says. “You know that, right?”
She doesn’t answer, trembling, staring at him, pleading with her eyes. He sees, again, how close she is to tears. Sees her on the brink of panic. And it doesn’t matter if she won’t tell him why. Of course he’s going to do whatever he can to make her smile.
“Alright, c’mon,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He vetoes the long-term road trip, obviously, but he does duck into his apartment to steal some snacks out of the kitchen. If he knows anything about Lorelai Gilmore, it’s that she definitely needs some food right now. Most of the time, really.
(He’s never met anyone who eats as much as she does. It’s weirdly endearing. And impressive, though he would never admit it to her.)
She’s already in the truck when he comes back out, and when she quickly scrubs a hand across her eyes, he pretends not to notice.
Luke doesn’t really know where to take her, but he turns on the car and pulls onto the road anyway. Lorelai turns the radio up louder than he likes and starts humming along.
Ordinarily he’d start grumbling and complaining, bickering with her as he went to turn it down and she swatted at his hand; he’d find something to object to—the genre, or the stupid lyrics, or the irritating sound.
He stays quiet, because she’s finally smiling, just a little, because she seems to be breathing easier, because the tears have finally retreated from her eyes.
Lorelai starts to dig through the bag of food he’d brought and lets out a gasp.
“Lucas Danes!” she cries, and he can already hear the teasing in her tone (good grief, somehow he loves being mocked by this girl). “What,” she continues, whipping out a Hostess snack and waving it in his face, “is this?”
“Watch where you wave that, I’m driving!” Luke snaps, carefully pushes her hand away so he can see the road.
“Where are the raw carrots?” Lorelai continues, clearing just warming up. “The heart-healthy options? How did a bag just—just full of sugar and fat end up in your car? Do you think someone broke in and left this here?”
Luke rolls his eyes, his heart lightened by the shine of excitement in her eyes.
“I know where my dad hides his junk food,” he says. “And you seemed like you could use some of this…this disgusting crap you love so much.”
He immediately regrets mentioning her previous emotional state, hopes it doesn’t re-spoil her mood.
But she just smiles softly. “Thanks, Luke,” she says, leaning over and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Outwardly, his reaction is a simple and imperceptible increase of his grip on the steering wheel and a small, poorly hidden smile.
Internally, he can’t believe he doesn’t crash the car.
There’s a few minutes of silence, and then Lorelai says, “Are we there yet?”
“Patience, Lorelai,” Luke says. But he finally realizes where they’re going. “Five more minutes.”
The stars might be brighter than Luke has ever seen them. Still, they aren’t quite as bright as the girl beside him. (Even Luke is disgusted he’d had that thought. He needs to go build a cabinet, or catch a fish, or something.)
They’re sitting in the bed of the pickup truck, in the middle of a field, watching the stars. Lorelai is pointing at different clumps of them every few minutes, making up constellations based on her own perception of the world.
(“Look, there behind that tree. It’s clearly your baseball hat!” “Very funny.” “Those ones are shaped like a random scattering of stars, see?” “You’re a lunatic.” “But a cute lunatic.”)
They don’t talk about whatever it was bothering Lorelai. Luke feels a press against his chest, telling him to ask about it, to push a little bit, but he doesn’t know how.
“Lorelai,” he says, but she takes his hand and he finds himself falling silent.
For now, he can just be there for her.
The police lights really do seem to come out of nowhere. Luke likes to think of himself as a fairly observant person, and he sort of can’t believe that he didn’t see this coming. The cops must have actually waited to turn on the lights and surprise them.
It’s not that he blames Lorelai but—damn, that girl is good at distracting him.
“Luke, I know you saw that No Trespassing sign,” Officer Turner says as he gets out of his car. He hasn’t even looked at the kids in the back of the truck yet; he just knows the truck. George Turner and Luke’s dad go fishing together every month like clockwork. George is at all of Luke’s track meets and Luke has been to the Turners’ house for lunch approximately a thousand times and Stars Hollow is two feet long and everyone is always constantly and forever up in everyone else’s business.
To further emphasis that point, the other officer gets out of the car, too, and of course it’s Liam Burnett.
“For Pete’s sake,” Luke mumbles under his breath.
Liam is only about four months older than Luke, but he was a year ahead of him in school, graduated already. Luke wouldn’t have said they were rivals, exactly, when Liam was in school—it’s kind of hard to be in a competition with someone if you don’t really give a crap about their successes or lack thereof. Damn if Liam didn’t try to convince Luke and everyone else of his overwhelming superiority since junior high, though.
Case in point: Liam is a cop now. Luke is still slugging his way through high school and working in his dad’s hardware store. Liam has a steady girlfriend of three years. Luke has spent five months pining after a girl miles out of his league. Liam is about to arrest Luke for trespassing. Luke is about to get arrested by Liam for trespassing.
Great.
“We could run away,” Lorelai whispers in his ear. He knows she’s kidding—he can hear the smile in her voice—but. Well. He’s still kind of blown away by how casual she is about this whole incident.
How many times has this girl been arrested?
“It’ll be fun,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to get in a high-speed police chase, haven’t you?”
Luke is fairly sure Stars Hollow police have never and will never be involved in a high-speed chase.
“Not especially,” he grumbles.
The cops walk over to them, and Liam is smirking the whole way.
“Hey Danes,” he says.
“Liam.” Luke turns to George. “We were just leaving, Mr. Turner,” he says, hoping he can still get them out of this. “You know how it goes, losing track of time.”
George’s expression is open enough that Luke thinks they actually have a chance, but then Liam says, “Well, I know I’m new to the force, but I don’t think there’s a minimum amount of time before trespassing counts as trespassing.”
Once this is verbalized, it’s all over.
George is very apologetic about the whole thing, as if it’s his fault, but he clearly feels awkward bending the rules while he’s responsible for training a new officer. Luke can’t blame him.
This is Stars freakin’ Hollow, so the cops only have one pair of handcuffs between them. After some whispered communication between them, they decide to handcuff Luke’s left hand to Lorelai’s right.
Whoop-dee-doo, Luke thinks. We’ll never escape now.
Finally they’re placed in the back of the car; the door is slammed shut. Luke’s left side is pressed up close against Lorelai.
“Your parents are gonna kill me,” he says. “Miss Patty’s gonna kill me. Your mother is going to have me castrated.”
“They didn’t even do that to the guy who got me pregnant, babe,” Lorelai says in a comforting voice. “I think you’re safe.”
“Yes,” Luke says, trying not to overreact at the casual way she drops the pet name. Or, at least, trying to keep her from noticing the way his heart rate picks up. “But he’s rich.”
There’s a beat of silence. “You may have a point,” Lorelai says.
They spend the time it takes to drive to the station whispering in the backseat about nothing at all. Despite everything, Luke finds that can’t stop smiling, and he can’t believe how unconcerned he is about being in the back of a cop car right now.
Because he’s in the back of a cop car with Lorelai Gilmore, and he thinks he might follow her anywhere.
When they get to the station, Luke begins to realize that George is trying to punish him just enough to feel bad without actually punishing him in any way that would have to get back to his dad or Lorelai’s parents. Of course, the town rumor mill would still inevitably pick it up in a heartbeat, but his dad was possibly more unconscious of the town’s goings-on than Luke was.
George and Liam leave them in the car, in the parking lot, still handcuffed together, and go into the station to “fill out paperwork.” Liam doesn’t look happy, so Luke thinks he realizes where this is going, too.
The silence is the car stretches out comfortably. Luke thinks Lorelai might even be nodding off against his shoulder, but again he feels that press to speak.
“Lorelai,” he says. “Since you’ve gotten me arrested now…do you maybe want to share what’s upsetting you?
She looks like she wants to say no. Like she might run away. But, well, she can’t. And he hopes maybe she doesn’t want to.
She sighs. “Chris called me,” she says.
Luke feels his heart drop into his stomach. He knows, intellectually, that there’s nothing between Lorelai and Christopher anymore. Except—there was, for a long time. They were in love just a few short months ago. They’re connected, irrevocably, by the experiences of firsts they shared, first everythings, Luke is sure. And, of course, through the child growing in Lorelai even now.
Not that Luke has any reason to worry about the current level of intimacy between Christopher and Lorelai. It doesn’t matter to him at all. It doesn’t affect him.
Ah, who is he kidding?
“Oh,” he says. He can’t think of anything else to say.
Thankfully, she fills the silence he leaves.
“It’s June,” she says, and her voice sounds hollow, lost. “School’s out for the summer. I don’t think…I don’t think I realized how much time had gone by. I forgot that the world would keep turning without me.”
Luke wants so badly to say something, to do something. He’s silent. Powerless.
“He said he misses me,” she says.
Luke makes himself breathe in and out very slowly.
“He asked if he could see me.” Her eyes are unfocused, staring into the past.
The silence stretches too long.
“What did you say?” Luke hates himself for asking. He turns to look out the window, focusing on the streetlights, a stray cat crossing the street, anything but the girl sitting close beside him.
“I said okay,” she says. “I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. He said he’ll call me again soon. It was just…terrifying. To hear from him. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to him.”
The longing in her voice is clear. It’s impossible to know if it’s longing for Christopher specifically, or just for the life she left behind. Luke doesn’t think Lorelai knows either. He doesn’t think he wants to know.
Do you still have feelings for him?
He doesn’t ask the question.
She answers it anyway.
“I’m so confused,” she says. “I loved him for so long. We’re having a baby. But I feel like we fell apart. I’m not sure if he can fit into my life anymore. But I can’t keep him from his kid. I don’t even know if I’d want to.”
Luke feels clumsy and foolish as he leans awkwardly against her side.
“These aren’t things you need to decide tonight,” he says gruffly. “But…I know that everything will be okay. I promise.”
She sighs and leans against him, too. “Thanks, Luke,” she says, and though she still seems anxious, her eyes close like she might take a nap.
At that moment, the driver’s door bangs open and George folds himself into the seat.
Lorelai’s eyes pop back open. She and Luke jump apart, or at least as apart as they can while handcuffed together.
“Okay, kids,” George says. “Let’s getcha home.” He starts the car.
“You sure Liam is gonna let me out of here without forty lashes?” Luke mutters, not quite as quietly as he intends.
“He’s a little eager,” George admits. “I know you’re a good kid, Luke. No one’s gonna press charges or anything.”
Luke lets out a breath of relief, despite the fact that he’d expected this result. George has always been a reasonable guy.
“And I know how it can be, doing something stupid trying to impress a pretty girl,” he laughs, raising his eyebrows at Lorelai.
Luke takes it back. He’s never hated anyone as much as he hates George Turner.
But Lorelai laughs and leans against him even more, and he’s getting emotional whiplash right now.
Thankfully, George shuts up and drives them back home, letting them out of the car, unlocking the handcuffs, and driving away with a cheerful goodnight. Finally, they’re left standing on the curb in front of Miss Patty’s, listening to the crickets, staring at each other.
Luke rubs at his newly freed wrist, not because it hurts, but for something to do.
“So,” he says.
“So,” Lorelai echoes.
Before he has a chance to process what she’s doing, she has her hands around his neck and she’s pulling his head down and their lips are meeting. He’s so startled that it takes a minute for him to even think of wrapping his arms around her, but then he does and he pulls her as close as he can manage, and for a long, perfect moment they kiss.
Then, almost as if by some silent agreement, they break apart.
“We probably shouldn’t do this,” Luke whispers.
“Yeah,” Lorelai says. “Yeah, not with…” she gestures at her stomach, looks down. “You wouldn’t…”
Luke grabs her hand, and she meets his eyes again. “Not that,” he says. “Just. With Christopher. How you’re feeling…” He uses his free hand to brush a few stray hairs out of her eyes. “We’ve got time, Lorelai. We don’t need to rush.”
She smiles softly. Leans up on her tiptoes to press one more quick kiss to his mouth. “I think you might be too good for me, Luke Danes,” she says.
He scoffs. “Hardly.”
She pulls him into a hug and his face is half buried in her hair. She smells good, and she’s warm and soft in his arms, and yeah, he thinks, this is worth waiting for.